


Too Few To Take My Leave

by angevin2



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Historical, Internal Monologue, M/M, Medieval, Unrequited Love, Whining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life hands Henry the bitter bread of banishment. He is not in the mood for French toast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Few To Take My Leave

It was bad enough, Henry Bolingbroke thought, that he had been banished. Worse yet -- though not, he had to admit to himself, particularly surprising -- that his father had thought this a very good idea, and insult to injury that he found himself spending his last hours in England in the company not only of his father, the Lord Marshal, and, on the way out of London, throngs of tearful commoners (all right, that part was not, if he were _completely_ honest with himself, _that_ bad), but also of his cousin Aumerle, who had attached himself to Henry like a lamprey after Richard pronounced his sentence of exile and insisted on escorting him to Portsmouth for no reason. No _good_ reason, anyway, because Henry was sure that once Aumerle got back to court Richard would hear about every word that passed between them, and then Richard would sling his arm around Aumerle's neck and laugh in that way he had where he'd throw his head back and you could see his whole throat and Henry had to tear his thoughts away from that image because he could feel his face burning in spite of the chill winds.

Henry knew he was probably well out of it, that having the better part of a decade to piss around the continent meant he'd miss out on whatever it was that was about to break out in England, whatever inward chaos it was that was festering in the body politic, and yet.

_"Had I thy youth and cause,"_ his father had told him, _"I would not stay."_

Henry had not asked his father what he meant by that. He was expected to know these things, after all, although he knew that he had almost certainly gotten it wrong, because he couldn't remember the last time his father had suggested he was even _capable_ of getting things right, and was not at all sure that this had _ever_ happened, because his father had a way of making even self-evident things, like the absolutely true fact that pretending you were running away from the plague or going crusading when you obviously weren't wouldn't make your _enforced exile_ seem _the least bit shorter_, feel like utter idiocy, and like he was overwhelmingly dull for even thinking them. Which, granted, he clearly was, compared to his father, or Richard, who could turn anything you said inside out in the blink of an eye, or even fucking _Aumerle,_ since after all he could keep up with Richard's banter, and he supposed even Richard had to value something about the young men who surrounded him, other than their arses.

Henry, on the other hand, was not clever. His father reminded him of this often. But, he said, that didn't matter very much as far as his political career was concerned. "The English don't like people who are too clever," he said once. "They like solid, stupid people who win a lot of tournaments. They have it in their heads that people they think they'd like to drink ale with somehow have the best idea about how the state should run."

And maybe his father was right, because Henry had people on his side now, didn't he? He couldn't, as much as he tried, rid himself of his father's words: _Think not the King did banish thee, but thou the King._

_If you wanted it,_ that nagging little voice in his head kept saying, _you could have it._ And then it would echo, even more quietly, barely even a whisper of a thought, _you could have him._

Maybe his boat would sink on the way over to France. He should be so lucky.


End file.
